USWA leader hurting Canadians

Keeping the issue of U.S. Steel alive, the Hamilton Spectator published this letter to the editor today. An interesting aspect of the problem I hadn’t considered before.

U.S. Steel bought Stelco and made record profits last year. Then the Americans ruined the world economy and U.S. Steel shut down the Hamilton and Lake Erie works, moved all our orders — including Canadian orders — to Pittsburgh, Alabama and Indiana

[…] what follows is some discussion of how US Steel got around NAFTA rules. But the sting is in the tail

What really hurts is our Canadian-born USWA president Leo Gerard not only backs this “Buy American” approach, but used union dues to lobby Congress to get the protectionist plan passed at the expense of Canadian workers.

If it were not for Gerard, we might be actually working, making steel at Stelco, rather than hoping our EI won’t run out before we start up again.

I don’t know about all of it, but at least part of it is true. Leo Gerard was born and raised in a mining family in Sudbury.